I have always been wanting to bring the children to the zoo, especially now that Cieran takes more intere
st on animals. He especially adores elephant and monkey...thanks to the picture on his pull ups. Haha! After much 'convincing' made to Jeremy, we decided to make a trip on Dec 31. It was a wonderful weather that day! We arrived at the zoo entrance at around 10am, and the process of making the zoo pass was fast and efficient. Instantly we got the annual pass and p
roceed with the exploration in the park. With the map, we headed towards our first animal show-Sea lion
performance. Along the way to the theatre, we passed by parrots, otters, flamingos, orangutan etc. Cieran gets excited over the monkeys on the tree tops. The theatre was crowded with tourists and unfortunately, we did not manage to find any vacant seats. We parked the stroller on 
one side and have to carry the children to let them have a good look. The performance was entertaining with sea lions amusing the audience. Cieran enjoys the performance as much as Ashley. Next, we move on to watch Elephants at Work show. Cieran gets excited when I mention 'elephants'. We are lucky t
o have found a front seat for the show. The
2 kids walked all the way to the front, standing, to have a better glimpse on the elephants of Asia. It was a marvellous performance, showing all the elephants' talents-such as using their truck to hold huge logs, piling the logs, splashing of water..etc. After the show, we went to the Australia outback for children to get in touched with Emu and Kangaroos. We went to visit hippos, white tiger, and watched the 'all animals play back time' perfo
rmance before we hop on to the tram ride. We cant be missing the white tiger... Ashley's favourite animal... moreover it's tiger year next year...haha! (what a reason!) Cieran was tired and he slept during the performance. Our last stop is KFC! We are all hungry from the walking, and also coz it was rather late for lunch (around 3pm). We had hearty meals and the family members had really enjoyed a fun trip at the zoo. On our way home, the children smile happily without any sign of tiredness... (Coz Cieran had taken his nap earlier)
Cieran has been attending classes at GUG since he is about 10months plus. Through the many lessons, I witness his learning progress. He took longer time to 'warm up' compared to his sister, but I understand that every child learns different
tly. I have nothing to complain when I see that he has benefited from the numerous lessons and it's money well paid for. ( I feel). From a little shy boy who always 'stick's to me, now he learns to be more independent. He is able to walk up to the front of his class on his own to satisfy hi
s curiously, than having this mummy to keep encouraging him and pushes him forward. I am relief and happy to see such progress. This day, Dec 19, Cieran will be having a Xmas party in his class. He happily kn
ots his head when I ask if he wants to dressed as Santa. This little boy, not sure of he knows what is Santa... haha! Nonetheless, he knows he is having some fun in class. The craft lesson was in the theme of Christmas. The children are to make their own Xmas card. Cieran watched attentive
ly at teacher doing a demonstration. Cieran enjoys gluing and didn't want to stop. Mummy has no choice but to hide the glue away from him. After the usual lesson, the party starts. Cieran has been waiting..... when the teacher is trying to lay the table with f
ood, this little boy was already standing, eyeing on the food. He doesn't care less about the gift exchange that is on going at the other side of the class room. When finally the party starts, the children happily found a seat, enjoying the food that parents bought. There are too much food for all of us... chicken nuggets, cakes, fish balls, biscuits, crackers etc. The prawn crackers seems to most popular among the children. Cieran took a fancy on chocolate wafers. He keeps asking for more. 
This trip had been planned long ago...sometime in June. It was initiated from an article in My Paper on Came
ron. I was attracted by the nature and the description in the papers that I started to 'influence' Jeremy and my sisters if they will be kee
n. Glad that Jeremy is OK with my proposal and Grace decided to join as well. A pity mum and dad didn't want to join eventhough my intention is to give them a free trip on my expense. After much research and calculations, I have decided to fly to Ipoh via firefly, then booked a transport to bring all of us (7pax) up to Cameron. Hotel had also been set to stay in a 3-rooms apartment at Hotel Equatorial. The day finally comes.. and the kids are excited over the trip. It's the 1st trip for little Cieran and 1st time on a airplane. He is a cutie... he insisted to be carry a bag over his shoulder, just like his sister. Looking at their happy smiles, I am happy too! Cieran is extremely happy when he sees an airplane. This is our
1st time to visit the budget airport and 1st ti
me on board Firefly Air. It was better than I imagine. The budget air provides quite good service on board. Unlike jetstar who doesn't serve any food items unless you purchase them, firefly aire does provides light snacks and juice FOC. We arrived to Ipoh at 4.30pm. Smoothly met the driver and on the drive to Cameron. The children gets so excited that they 
refused to nap on the 1.5hrs journey. 
The children choose to sit together by the last row. The route up the 
highland has been easy, it was unlike what I have been told that the roads are rough and curvy. It was a comfortable ride, not as bad as I projected. I love the natural air-con from the cooling weather. Our apa
rtment turn out to be a pleasant one, bigger than expected. Th
e children have fun walking around exploring. After settling down the luggage, we went out for a sumptuous meal. Thanks to the hotel shutter service that gave us a free ride to Strawberry View restaurant for yummy steamboat. It's a pleasure to have something soupy and warm in such a cool weather (esp after rain!) Our 1st experience to enjoy steamboat on such cool weather. I love it! Back to hotel, we walked a
round the lobby and ended up having ice cream for desserts. Sitting at the fireplace, it's so relaxing. The children amuses themselves with balloons picking fr
om
an event held at the ballroom. Little Cieran is sure happy! He loves balloons. The next day filled the day up with educational tours! We have hired a coach for 6 hours, bringing us around to several farms. The 1st stop is Rose Garden. An eye opener for all of us to see such many rose varieties. Beside roses, the 3 old cactus caught our attention. The cactus was older than any one of us. Haha! They are 39, 40 and 41 years old! Natural, the l
adies are admiring
and enjoying the flowers while the men gets kinda bored...haha! Jeremy and Cieran rather wait for us at the souvenir shop. Next,
we stopover at the honeybee farm. The children gets the opportunity to see the different types of bees and wasps. Little Cieran is very curious...at least, he gets to see up close how a bee looks like. ;-p A good educational tour for kids indeed! As we drive along the route, we stopped by a small watercress farm. They serve
d steamboat as well, and we have decided to try that for dinner. Again, another eyeopener
r for us. 1st time we saw how watercress was grown. You'll be amazed how the folks here can drain the water through piping for the growth and watercress was grown in a pool of 'drainwater'.... how unhygienic...haha! But then, from the landscaping point of view, it does look beautiful. Just don't look down! Next stop is Boh Tea Plantation, a must to visit! Along th
e journey, you can already see how big the tea plantation is.... which means, how rich the own is! The factory is open free for visitors. We get to see how 
the tea leaves was processed. There's a simple introduction given by the driver, which was good information about the grade of tea leaves. I've bought 2 packs of Boh tea. 3-in-1 tea packs and ice tea with fruits for home consumption. We took a break at the Boh Tea Cafe. The children enjoys their cake...esp Little Cieran. He loves the cake, and I went off to buy another one for the children to share. After lunch, the driver brought us to the farm that the children had been waiting for. It's the highlight of the whole tour-Strawberry farm! The 
children has been asking since morning when they 
can picked the strawberries...! Look at the 3 strawberries? Which is juicer? The picking wasn't cheap, actually. It was half a kg at RM 20, but it comes with the fun of choosing own fruit and cut it with the scissors provided. The next hour was spent of busy walking around, in search of big, red strawberries. Ashley was really busy in picking her fruit, while Cieran was her assistant, carrying a basket fo
llowing her. The kids look so cute with their baske
ts. This is all our 1st time 
(sounds so familiar) to see a strawberry pot. The flower is beautiful, white petals with yellow pulps. The farm are grown from hydroponics. Organic with no fertilisers used. The children gets to eat freshly picked strawberries after the weighing, paying and washing. The most happy one again is little Cieran. He loves strawberries! Ashley on the other hand, doesn't like strawberries, but she enjoys too... 
with her strawberry smoothies. Besides strawberries, there's also a varieties of vegetables grown in the farm. Fresh lettuce best for salads. A pity we are not able to buy any of them... wont be fresh by the time we bring back to SIN. But the look of it, you will know that they will taste very yummy. The whole tour has been an enjoyable one. I believed all the children has a fruitful day. Back to the apartment, the children are still very energetic. They started to play the few toys that I brought. Snap, fishing game..and Uno. The guys, on the other hand, were so tired and took a nap in the rooms until dinner time. The dinner at watercress was an interesting one. N
ot the usual steamboat that we had, the soup base was kinda 'herbal'. None
theless, it was healthy. As the kids have a long tour in the day without nap, they are all tired over dinner. On our last day, we decided to walk out to the market on our own instead of hopping on to the hotel shuttle. It was a relaxing and cool walk. The
Kea Farm-day market was not far from our hotel. We have some fruitful buys, such as a strawberry umbrella that I have been eyeing for, a couple of key chains for Ashley to give to her friends in carpe diem, a strawberry shortcake bag for Ashley etc... Yes, strawberry... Cameron's token is strawberries! Good for the girls...haha... but nothing much to buy for the boys. Vernon felt so left out... I believed Cieran will too, if he is older. (Phew! He doesn't understands yet) Our 4 days 3 nights had been well spent in Cameron. Though short, but we all have a FUN time! 
I have been thinking, if only Singaporeans also dressed up on festive such as Halloween, it will be so fun! Treats or Tricks!.... especially for the children, I believed they will have lots
n lots of fun. Unfortunately, Halloween is not celebrated very much here. Nonetheless, to create some fun... I have bought the children each a Halloween-design Ts. This is not planned. I happened to saw such Ts selling at Bossini while shopping at Jurong IMM. Cieran loves the Ts the moment I showed him. I have no idea why he likes the Ts so much...haha! It was just a black Ts with a skeleton design (with the e-loom effect). He simply doesn't want to let go the Ts. Haha... and in fact, he wa
nts to put it on immediately. He's such a cutie! So, how can I not get him this Ts right? To be fair, Ashley gets to choose her Halloween Ts as well. My favourite stall in IMM is Daiso. I can spent hours just in that store.
I enjoy walking around, slowly browsing for things for the house. Ashley had long been 'trained' to shop with me since young and she has absolute no complaints about me spending hours shopping. Or rather, females are in born shoppers! hahaha... Cieran has been good so 
far. He sits in the shopping strollers and is forever happy whenever there's snacks to keep him occupied. (that's the trick!) It's not difficult to spot Halloween stuffs at Daiso. Ashley and mummy have some fun trying on the witches' hat and spooky spider hat... pumpkins hat...etc. I put on one on Cieran. He looks real cute on a orange pumpkin hat. A pity he didn't like it. He took it off and threw it away..haha! Mummy is ready to buy for him though... haiz! Ashley chose a witch hat and a mysterious mask. I think it will go well with her Halloween Ts. Just to have fun, spending $4 for 'dressed up' is affordable. Of course, I cant consider the total spending in Daiso...haha! Anyway, we do have fun with our props. Little Cieran doesn't like the Halloween hat, but took a fancy on Xmas hat! Look at the pic, doesn't he look cute too!? though a little mixed up... Halloween or
Christmas???
I am excited over this date - 3Nov. Not because this date was my birthday
... it was because it's a day where Ashley's ballet school open it's dance room for parents. For the 1st time parents get to enter the dance room and see th
e wonderful performance of the children. Practical terms, to see what 'results' their child had learnt. The children have no idea that parents will be in the room, but they are more than happy to welcome audience in and proudly present their best shots. Watching Ashley dance is my joy. I suppose naturally, as a mum you feel proud of your child. Little Cieran was happy to watch his sister dancing too. He surprised several mum
mies who came in for the open house to see that Cieran was so well-behaved, never cranky and watched quietly for almost 90mins. Of course, occasionally he moves here and there, but generally, very well-behaved compared to most kids (esp boys). The ballet teacher, Ms June Lee has been very professional. She explains some dance moves, the difference between the old and new RAD syllabus to parents. I valued the information shared as a 'ballet dummy' like me, don't really appreciate such arts...haha! But I think I will grow to enjoy it. As usual, I cant help to take out my camera and busy recording the moves for each piece of dance. Ms June get the girls to show the parents both Classical Ballet and Jazz Ballet of which they have been learning in class. Most girls love jazz ballet with the fast and hip music. S
everal of them are taking the Jazz Ballet examination on Nov 17, including Ashley. After the dance performance and explanation, J
une touched on the topic on YOG. Ashley had went for YOG audition last Sunday (Nov1) as the school of ballet was involved in this big event. Few of the girls will be selected to perform in YOG. I am not sure if Ashley will be selected. As parents, we have mixed feelings over this matter. If she is being selected, we are happy for her to have such a good exposure. Honestly speaking, it's a 'once a life time' experience for her. How often will Singapore be hosting country for YOG? It adds on to her ballet 'portfolio' and it will only be have a positive impact for her future. But, on other other hand, it means we have to plan our time in bringing her for rehearsals, and the 
full commitment in her participation. Another consideration will be, how these rehearsals will impact on her studies...she will be in Pri 1 next year. I told Jeremy that we just 'leave it natural'. If she got in, we should feel proud of her 天分 in dancing. 有一天，过一天. We shall know if she will be selected via post from the school. The class end later
than expected due to some information sharing, but it was fruitful. We reached home close to 9pm. After washed up, my mini birthday celebrations starts. Cieran was exited. He has learn that we have to light the candle as he points out to me to do so. Both children waited anxiously for me to do that, and Ashley happily sings the birthday song after I did that. Cieran doesn't know how to sing, but he shake his head enjoying. We had cake as supper.... if you notice, we are all wearing pyjamas! (exclude the naked man....haha!)
I have always been wanting to bring the children to the zoo, especially now that Cieran takes more intere
st on animals. He especially adores elephant and monkey...thanks to the picture on his pull ups. Haha! After much 'convincing' made to Jeremy, we decided to make a trip on Dec 31. It was a wonderful weather that day! We arrived at the zoo entrance at around 10am, and the process of making the zoo pass was fast and efficient. Instantly we got the annual pass and p
roceed with the exploration in the park. With the map, we headed towards our first animal show-Sea lion
performance. Along the way to the theatre, we passed by parrots, otters, flamingos, orangutan etc. Cieran gets excited over the monkeys on the tree tops. The theatre was crowded with tourists and unfortunately, we did not manage to find any vacant seats. We parked the stroller on 
one side and have to carry the children to let them have a good look. The performance was entertaining with sea lions amusing the audience. Cieran enjoys the performance as much as Ashley. Next, we move on to watch Elephants at Work show. Cieran gets excited when I mention 'elephants'. We are lucky t
o have found a front seat for the show. The
2 kids walked all the way to the front, standing, to have a better glimpse on the elephants of Asia. It was a marvellous performance, showing all the elephants' talents-such as using their truck to hold huge logs, piling the logs, splashing of water..etc. After the show, we went to the Australia outback for children to get in touched with Emu and Kangaroos. We went to visit hippos, white tiger, and watched the 'all animals play back time' perfo
rmance before we hop on to the tram ride. We cant be missing the white tiger... Ashley's favourite animal... moreover it's tiger year next year...haha! (what a reason!) Cieran was tired and he slept during the performance. Our last stop is KFC! We are all hungry from the walking, and also coz it was rather late for lunch (around 3pm). We had hearty meals and the family members had really enjoyed a fun trip at the zoo. On our way home, the children smile happily without any sign of tiredness... (Coz Cieran had taken his nap earlier)
